THREE:The Lords Justices having met, appointed Joseph Addison, afterwards so celebrated as a writer, and even now very popular, as their secretary, and ordered all despatches addressed to Bolingbroke to be brought to him. This was an intimation that Bolingbroke would be dismissed; and that proud Minister, instead of giving orders, was obliged to receive them, and to wait at the door of the Council-chamber with his bags and papers. As the Lords Justices were apprehending that there might be some disturbances in Ireland, they were about to send over Sunderland as Lord-Lieutenant, and General Stanhope as Commander-in-Chief; but they were speedily relieved of their fears by the intelligence that all had passed off quietly there; that the Lords Justices of Ireland, the Archbishop of Armagh, and Sir Constantine Phipps, who had been more than suspected of Jacobitism, had proclaimed the king on the 6th of August, and, to give evidence of their new zeal, had issued a proclamation for disarming Papists and seizing their horses. The proclamation of George passed with the same quietness in Scotland, and no king, had he been born a native, in the quietest times, could have succeeded to the throne more smoothly. Eighteen lords, chiefly Whigs, were nominated by the new king to act as a Council of Regency, pending his arrival, and the Civil List was voted by Parliament.And, in fact, circumstances rendered it advisable to retreat. Joseph Buonaparte, with the reinforcements of Sebastiani, had joined Victor, and that general felt ready to advance. At the same time Wellesley learned that Soult had arrived in Palencia, in the British rear. He desired Cuesta to guard the pass of Puerto de Ba?os, but this he did so ineffectually that both Soult and Mortier marched through it. Ney also reached Palencia, and thus fifty-three thousand men were threatening to cut off Sir Arthur's route to Portugal. He determined to fall back on Oropesa, leaving Cuesta to defend Talavera, and protect the two thousand British wounded in the hospitals; but Cuesta speedily abandoned the place, leaving one thousand five hundred of the wounded behind, whom Victor, to his honour, treated in the most humane manner. With the road of the enemy thus left open in his rear in two directions, Sir Arthur, at the same time, learned that Soult's division had got between him and the bridge of Alvarez, in the direct line of his march into Portugal. His situation, thus hemmed in by overwhelming forces, was most critical, and he informed Cuesta that he must file off for Badajos. He reached Badajos safely on the 2nd of September, carrying the one thousand five hundred wounded with him. These he sent to the strongly fortified town of Elvas, in Portuguese territory, which now became the great hospital of the army. Sir Arthur, on the 7th of September, was informed of the arrival of Sir Robert Wilson at Castello Branco. He had conducted his little force almost to the gates of Madrid, and had made a powerful diversion in favour of the main army, by keeping King Joseph and the French General in constant fear of his joining Venegas and attacking the capital. On his return, by order of Wellesley, he had gallantly fought his way against vastly superior forces, always contriving to make the enemy believe that his strength was double what it was. His conduct of this expedition elicited the most cordial praises from the Commander-in-Chief. At this juncture Napoleon sent a dispatch, ordering the army in Spain to cease further offensive operations till the conclusion of the Austrian war enabled him to send fresh reinforcements into Spain. This was a proof that Buonaparte no longer hoped to beat the British army by any but the most preponderating masses. He had in Spain ten times the forces of the British, yet he could not hope for victory from this vast disproportion. Wellesley, at this very time, in one of his dispatches, had observed this great fact. "I conceive," he said, "that the French are dangerous only in large masses." The British army was therefore quartered on the line of the Guadarama, to protect Portugal from Soult, and remained undisturbed till the following May. Whilst the hostile forces were thus resting, the news reached Sir Arthur that he had been created Baron Douro of Wellesley, and Viscount Wellington of Talavera. This honour had been conferred upon him on the 4th of September, as soon as possible after the arrival of[579] the news of his brilliant and memorable victory at Talavera.